I'm announcing the release 0.1 of python-bitcoin. This is a a more friendly interface to the JSON-RPC interface of bitcoin (named exceptions, automatic configuration loading so no user/pass needs to be specified for connection, and Pythonish interface and documentation) .

I intend to push it to PyPi eventually, so you can simply install it with easy_install bitcoin-python.

Bitcoin Core developer [PGP]Warning: For most, coin loss is a larger risk than coin theft. A disk can die any time. Regularly back up your wallet through File → Backup Wallet to an external storage or the (encrypted!) cloud. Use a separate offline wallet for storing larger amounts.